A Hong Kong-Chinese film has been withdrawn from the Tokyo international film festival owing to ongoing political tensions between China and Japan, reports Screen Daily.

Festival organisers announced on Tuesday that Yim Ho's Floating City, a Cantonese-language drama chronicling the meteoric rise of an illiterate man (played by Aaron Kwok) from a local fishing family to a powerful figure in Hong Kong's corporate world, would not after all be screening in the Japanese capital next month.

"It is with great regret that we have to announce the cancellation of the scheduled screening of Floating City at the 25th Tokyo international film festival owing to certain reasons on the production side," a statement read. "Although we have strongly requested those involved not to call off the plan to take part in the festival, the cancellation has unfortunately been finalised."

Violent protests have taken place across China in the past week after Japan took the decision to "nationalise" the chain of disputed, gas-rich Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. The archipelago is known in China as the Diaoyu islands and has been in Japanese hands since 1895. The move to withdraw Floating City countered suggestions by Tokyo international film festival chairman Tom Yoda last week that political tensions would not affect the festival.

The big budget Sino-Japanese co-production 1905 also appears to be another victim of the ongoing dispute over the islands. Starring Hong Kong's Tony Leung, and directed by Japan's Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the period action-drama was due to start filming in Taiwan in November but has now been postponed. Leung was due to play a loan shark who ventures from Guangdong province in China to Yokohama in Japan to recover debts from a band of anti-Manchu government revolutionaries.

The 25th Tokyo international film festival is due to run from 20-28 October. Fifteen competition titles were originally due to compete for the Sakura grand prix, which carries a cash award of $50,000.

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